Post navigation

The Coin of the Sages

The Coin of the sages is an alchemist’s gift from heaven. It turns up in any crucible of life and relationships. We polish our old copper coins (Venus) till they shine as the golden Sun.

In an old alchemy journal I found this entry … delicately it interfaces the timeless diary of today. “The Glory of the World” and “The Golden Tripod” which are quoted, are 17th century writings in the Hermetic Museum library. The Tarot keys discussed are in the Builders of the Adytum deck.

BOTA Tarot Tableau: three septenaries, seven columns: the keyboard. This deck is published by the Builders of the Adytum in black and white: each student colours and thereby empowers his or her own deck, following the Builders’ strict guidelines. The colours of the Keys have audial resonance also.

..

8 March 2003 COIN

The ripe Priestess sometimes makes Hermit’s Mountain seem remote … winnowing out error and shattering the Tower. These three Keys form a vertical column in the BOTA Tarot Tableau. In fact they represent the bud, the bloom and the bursting of the seedcase as from chrysalis … in nature and in any creative process.

Beginning my Sapphire Tree painting for a book cover: I started as blind egoists do on the dirty surface. This should grow organically from centre as a mandala — not in one rush like a face. Sapphire means liquid pale blue fire. The 72 leaves should be a delicate tracery of seminal wave connections in the white fire around and between the Menorah branches. Working from the centre outwards, let it grow. Here is a dirty pool. Cleanse to begin with, its centre.

Paul Foster Case invites me again to dip into the alchemical forests of “GLORY OF THE WORLD”. When reading these, fountain gently with them up and down, restoring the synchrony of heart-body which is today collapsed and tired.

On page 61 it discusses the COIN OF THE SAGES. I can see this white Coin from the sky, so bright that I cannot see yet what is impressed upon it.

Our Stone has its head in the earth and its root in the air. I read alchemical texts not with my Hod but with the breath, with my inside. Then they glow. It says the Spirit delights in nothing so much as its own Soul and its own body. Delight is another word for the Higher Will; be comforted. It is minted pure and bright and white within the dark. Begin from the centre
but let it descend first from the white sun. The work ofthe Priestess lets it descend. 10am, School of the Soul.

Priestess, King of Swords and the Fool, 1987

The Priestess, Rosy Cross and Fool descending – 2003

September 2018 – The evolution of those two drawings (1987 and 2003) is my life today – the heart beats within the tapestry. A house to paint in, which I invoked 15 years ago and forgot about, recently materialised; last week I beeswaxed the floor and began work there with a new Tree of Life – see end of this post. I have not painted for years!

new art-room

..

2003 continued:

Hurly Burly welcomed her Mum so kindly last night at the Garrick wine-bar – Mum was feeling lousy because she’s forgotten how to paint. HB too has been re-discovering how to paint — the light came in through her window. I had a nice time there where she works, but ate and drank too much, which paralyses my gut for the night. But to read the “Golden Tripod” now, sprays white light into the Garrick; and I was introduced to a curly Paddy who has 400 (?) paintings he said he bought and collected in his house — the secret of a good painting is it invites you to take a walk into it. Tall tales do not matter in conversation. On my right, as I tackled warm goat’s cheese and fennel swordfish and a big glass of wine, sat Marta’s sister with her hyperactive three-year-old son Adam enjoying himself all over the counter with his tiny neat brown hands.

Enough: now focus on Basil Valentine.

It is impossible for Yesod to sperm the Stone. Yesod cannot remember how. The sperming comes down through antakharana – the pipeline – and is observed and — as perception of it refines and begins to dispel the obscuring cloud — obeyed with joy: as in p.45 in the Golden Tripod. Note the Source of the Priestess’s stream and her receiving element. Male and female seed are the One thing, the Child within. Wherever there is joy in creation is this natural intercourse of the Air, the secret fire, the dew. The Earth is only the invisible thing that attracts union. Out of no thing blossoms unicity.

Seek not our Stone in substances which cannot stand the test of fire. Seek it in the incombustible oil that is the fire itself that ever renews and fattens the land. It grows and gently shines and increases like a plant. It increases in that it prevails. Through all darkness, the stem glows and shines.

..

September 2018

Here is the beginning of my new Tree painting – just sketching out Malkuth, Yesod, Hod, Netzach in the Lower Face, based on carvings of the Companions around Chartres cathedral; Archangel Rafael in Hod has no face yet. I hope for it to combine thematically the medieval flowering of Islamic alchemists and Christian sages, the Star, Cross and Crescent, the child and parenting, the cosmic serpent of our DNA, nature and the fountain of life … as the journey begins, let it lead me where it will.

..

Life has been too full-on for me to keep up with my blog posting. But a month or two ago, I posted in my other blog Aquariel about a pair of Tarot oracles in June and July. Here are the three links:

For Gaia
janeaquariel.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/summer-oracle-1-for-gaia/